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"As in any alpine region, the weather is changeable, protection questionable, route-finding bewildering, rockfall frequent and descents tedious. In short, it's everything you could ever ask for." — from the Canadian Alpine Journal, 1993. Day 5. When I first reached Thumb Rock I hadn’t felt very optimistic about completing the route, but today I feel stronger and more confident, even though the most difficult climbing remains. We discuss how best to lead out of camp. Looking left to the steeper, more direct route, I see deep snow between us and the slope, and then some broken snow on the slope itself, all of which make me wonder about how sheltered that slope is from an avalanche- or capable of avalanching on its own. . We eventually decide to go out of Thumb Rock to the right, with Isaac feeling strong enough to lead. Again, Isaac finds more deep snow, sometimes thigh high or higher. It seems like it’s been snowing all morning. I am getting a bit worried. I expected wind on Rainier and now there isn’t any, suggesting that perhaps a system is stalling over the mountain and we are in for more snow that we want. Lots of new snow equals avalanches in my mind. When we stop to take a break, I ask Neal and Isaac about it, but they are unconcerned and think the worst might be some loose snow sloughs. I have seen a few of those already. Not really being accustomed to calculating the effect of these kinds of weather patterns in real time, I accept that they know what they’re talking about and agree to go on. My toes are very cold at this point, actually way past cold even though I preheated my boots with hand warmers and then tossed them between the boot and gator above my toes. This combination has previously allowed me to comfortably spend hours climbing ice in -15F back in Minnesota. But now my toes feel like ice cubes. Actually, they don't feel like much of anything except lumps in my boots that somehow don’t belong to me. I am hopping around and swinging my legs trying to get some blood to flow in there and warm them up. Isaac starts to move off just as my right foot is warming up. By the time I am starting to feel some life in my left foot, the rope goes taut and I have to start moving again. I hope my toes are going to be ok. So, we are moving again in the deeper snow. Even though I am following Isaac’s trail, I have to drive my knee into the snow above the foot I’m going to stand on. I half stand and half kneel, keeping weight spread out between foot, knee, ax and tool so I can kick my other foot in to gain altitude. If I try putting all my weight on just my axe, tool and boot, I slide back and really struggle. We make our way above the rock formation that sits above Thumb Rock and I start looking for two telltale rock bands (one thin and one thick) that we’ll have to pass through to order to gain the next long slope where I will take the lead on steep ice. We gather up under the rock bands and I ask Neal if he wants to take us through them. The bands don’t look difficult, but I ask Neal to stop if he hits ice, or if the route becomes technical. That’s my forte and that’s when I should be leading. Neal makes his way past the two lower rock bands and though a low spot in the upper rock band that should give us access to the steep upper ice slopes. I follow the rope and Neal leads slowly upward, finally cresting the rock band that should give me access to the upper slopes. I don't see what I expect. The ridge band extends above me and slightly left, and further up I see a rock wall cutting across our path off to the left. It appears there is some pretty deep snow under it, but I think we should be able to cross under it and then gain the upper slope. There’s only one problem, however. Neal is not working his way under the rock wall. I look up and see why: lots of snow is suddenly pouring down the wall. I won't call it an avalanche, but it’s definitely a big snow slough. The fact that the upper slopes seem too steep to hold much snow is a good thing, but crossing under that rock band with all that snow pouring over it can’t be a good idea. Neal has probably figured this out and is doing some rock leading of his own. In Neal's own words, he doesn't back down well and he isn't backing down now, despite Isaac and I both telling him to pull up if the ascent gets technical. We both wonder what’s going on as we yell to get his attention with no response. I know Neal can climb but he has no pro on him and I don’t think he has much if any experience placing it. The lack of communication is getting to me and I decide to go after him. Isaac and I chat about it and he agrees so I move off in search of Neal. I’m now carefully watching the rock band above me as it starts dumping lots of snow and rock. Falling rock? That’s a first for this trip. One reason we decided to climb in the early season was to avoid the crumbling and falling rock as the ridge thaws out. Now big rocks and little rocks are coming from a chute cut higher up in the rock band above me. I assume that Neal is leading some rock above me rather than risking the snow slope to our left, and that the falling rocks are evidence he is on the move. Finally I can communicate with him, telling him I am going to come and get him. He agrees, but reminds me I’m not on belay. I look back at Isaac and ask him if he can set another piece of pro. He agrees and I later find out he sets two. I turn to deal with the snow and rocks that are now randomly shooting out of the chute right in front of me. I look back and ask Isaac to give me some extra slack so I can move past the chute. I wait for a load of snow to come down, then climb past the chute as fast as possible, managing to not get clobbered by a rock or covered in snow. The next step is to find a place to put one of my four pieces of pro. I brought along two small tricams and two smallish nuts, thinking the extra weight would be tolerable in case I needed them. I need them now, given that Neal is somewhere above me in an unprotected position. I am determined to get one or two pieces in before climbing up into those rocks. Finding a place for a particular size of pro is a lot harder than finding a place to put pro if you’re simply sorting through dozens of different sized nuts, cams, tricams and hexes for a piece that fits. I find a crack that narrows a bit and is not in the crumbly rock. It takes some creative placement, but finally I place one of the nuts. I set it hard after putting the quick draw on it, but decide it’s only good for a downward pull, so I hammer it in with my ice tool. Once happy that it’s wedged in well enough that rope drag won’t pull it out, I move to the spot where Neal had climbed up into the rock band. Before I start climbing the rock, I hear Neal’s voice from above say something like, “I have you on belay, but it’s not really a belay, so don't fall.” Since this was the first real technical climbing I got to do, that just upped the grin factor because I was still pretty much leading. I start climbing up into the band, sometimes using my tool and axe, other times letting one or both hang while I used my gloved hands. “Whoooo haaaa,” I yell, with a big grin, “Now we’re doing some climbing!” Maybe it represents male bravado of some sort, or maybe the yelling is just the adrenalin speaking. I’m definitely starting to warm up. A shot of adrenalin feels great right about now. I may be yelling just to let both of them know I’m ok, but I don't really know for sure. I’m just glad I’m not the type of person who makes beta waves instead of endorphins and adrenalin in situations like this. As I move, I look for another place to put a piece of pro. I want to set one more for safety. I am about to turn straight up to Neal and climb the final 10 feet to him when I spot a crack that will hopefully take a red tricam. I do some prying to see if the rocks are just frozen in place or actually attached to something solid. Not getting them to budge, I place my red tricam. I don't know if Isaac will be too happy to see what’s passing for pro as he follows me up, but I figure something is better than nothing. I use extra diligence during the climb up to Neal to not drop rocks on Isaac, but the volcanic rock here just sucks for solidity. It keeps spitting and shooting rocks down from time to time, and I hope Isaac's helmet isn’t getting dinged. As I move up to Neal and his “belay” stance, he points out his improvised belay. He has wedged the shaft of his axe between two rocks and is “belaying” off that. Kudos for using what he had with him to improvise a belay. I reach him and start looking for a place to put my precious pink tricam. One of my rock climbing buddies and I joke about this all the time: if all we could take on a climb was one piece of pro, it would be the pink tricam. Well, I find a great place to set it and smile after it’s in place. After a short pause, Isaac is on belay and he works his way up to us. He finally makes his way up with only a couple of mild jesting complaints about the pro. “Beggars can't be choosers,” I tell him. Our next challenge is to get out of this rock band and back onto the route proper. I am feeling a bit warmer and am ready to cut up this line back onto the upper slope. This is my forte and it’s time to earn my keep. I have gotten back a few pieces of my pro, have an ice picket and screw or two, and lead off to my right where there’s a crumbling rock-face/knife-edge sticking up about 20 feet. In front of me is a steep rock slope covered in ever-deepening loose snow. I choose the face to my right and try to find purchase for my crampons on the slope in front of me. The slope seems unreliable so I angle up the knife- edge to the top, placing a couple of pieces of pro along the way. One of them is my trusty pink. I gain the top of the knife-edge and see an easy way out to the snow/ice slope that will eventually bring us up to the bergschunde thousands of feet above us. I start to look for a place to construct a belay on the knife edge and quickly realize I’m on a crumbling volcanic rock formation with no decent placements. I start digging through shallow snow here to expose and test a large rock that might provide a place to do a seated/terrain belay. I test one particularly large rock and away it goes. “Rock,” I bellow as I watch it bounce away with a sort of morbid fascination, realizing that it’s going to gather steam until it hits the Carbon Glacier about 4000 feet below us. I remember a helicopter rescue had been mounted a year or two ago after a falling rock on the Ridge hit a climber in the head. During the ensuing rescue, the helicopter crashed. I feel thankful right now, because I know there’s not a single other person on this Ridge other than us. Eventually I find a nice, large, solidly placed rock on the backside of the knife that will allow me to brace against the Ridge in the event of a fall. I tie myself down to it, set my belay tool on my belay loop, and check to make sure I’m ready. I then lean over the edge and, in my best king-of-the-mountain voice, bellow down as loud as I can that the “BELAY – IS – ON!”. I am convinced that I have just put in a 150+ foot lead on two pieces of pro, and that they will have a hard time hearing me. Then I hear Isaac say, “O… K…” in a matter-of- fact, almost conversational tone. I look down and see a body with a pack on it leaning out about 65 feet below me. What the heck? My massive lead has just been a short jaunt and all my yelling is doing is giving my climbing partners something to laugh about later on. Oh well. I belay them up to me and they pass me heading out onto the slope proper. Isaac takes some pickets and ice screws with him to set some running belays as we head towards the top of this long 55- 60-degree slope. My feet are a bit cold but otherwise I feel fine. The ice on this part of the slope never materializes because it’s too early in the season. Instead, we find ourselves on a steep, long, seemingly-unending knee to waist deep snow slog. As we move up, I ask Neal how much higher to the crest and he estimates about 200 feet. About 500 feet later it’s apparent that this slope is going to be a very long slog. The wind is firmly picking up and the temperature is dropping fast. We are climbing about 90 feet apart from each other. With the wind driving lose snow down on us we might as well each be breaking our own trail. By the time I get to Neal’s tracks, the snow had pretty much filled them in. It’s pretty deep and I am using the drive-the-knee-into-the-snow technique along with a tool and an axe. Isaac, at times, looks like he is trying to swim up the slope using his knees, hips, arms and elbows to distribute his weight in an almost vain attempt to gain altitude. It looks like Isaac wants to place more running belays, but I yell up to Neal that we are safe, we have to keep moving, and need to forget the running belays in order to get off this slope as quickly as possible. As it turned out, it took us much longer to get off the slope than we could ever have imagined. The climb turns into a rhythmic slog. About 400 feet from the top Neal starts yelling about getting short-roped to avoid each of us having to individually break trail. We gather up at Isaac's stance, where he had his gloves off and is digging for his mittens. I see his hands turning white with his knuckles looking much darker, all within less than two minutes. I yell to Neal that Isaac is getting frostbite and needs us to give him a windbreak. We move above and beside him to provide the windbreak. Seeing what happens to Isaac’s hands causes us to switch from climbing mode to staying-warm mode. Neal says we need to pitch our tent and points off to our left at a large rock formation, saying we need to move to the bottom of it and pitch the tent there. We are on a 55-60 degree slope, and I suggest going a bit higher along the side of the rock formation rather than on the steep slope just below it. I guess my suggestion just gets lost in the wind because Isaac is now moving over towards the bottom of the rock at Neal's urging. But it really slopes off towards Willis Wall near the bottom and it’s becoming clear to everyone we can’t place a tent there. Neal asks for suggestions and I point out some indents in the rock a bit higher up. We agree on that location and climb to an inset corner at about 13,000 feet that will hopefully give us some shelter. We begin cutting some ledges for the backpacks to sit on and then quickly pull out our down coats to keep from freezing. My gloves have now frozen into two rigid claws in the shape of a hand holding the top of an ax. I am becoming increasingly convinced that the gloves are not going to be useful for anything that requires dexterity, and now that we have stopped moving my hands are beginning to get cold. I dig into my pack for my backup gloves and hand warmers, tossing the warmers into the dry gloves. The warmers really feel nice right now. I move up a bit and find a crack to set a nut for something to clip into. I ask Isaac to find a place for another piece of pro down in the inset corner. After that Neal and Isaac begin cutting the ledge and Neal asks me to take part in the chores. I grab my ice ax, move to the rapidly growing ice/snow ledge and start hacking away at the ice in the back corner so it will keep growing. We keep working but the ledge is not getting big enough. Neal says its time to put the tent up and I comment that it’s not going to fit. Neal says something about being tired of cutting the ledge into the ice and wants to test whether it’s big enough to support the tent. Neal heads down to my pack, pulls the tent poles out and hands them to me. We spread the tent body out and make sure one of us always has a hold on it as we divvy up the other tasks. The wind is fiercely cold. Later we figure the wind chills are between –15F and –25F, possibly colder. Neal says that we should not put anything down unless it is connected to something else, or it will either get buried or blown down the slope. I kneel down on one end of the tent body and we finally get the poles in place. I’m still holding the vestibule pole, however, and we won’t be able to use it because the pad is a bit short. I want my hands free to work with and briefly think of stuffing the pole in the back corner of the pad. But Neal's words are echoing in my head. After taking a moment to think, I stuff the folded pole down the front of my coat, then take an ice screw off my harness and anchor the back of the tent directly into the ice slope. I then place a snow picket on the same corner, driving it down through different layers of snow and ice. Neal is doing the same in the other corner while Isaac is leaning on the center of the tent with his face into the wind and back to the slope. With the tent up but not yet secured, we worry it might get blown down the slope so we have to have someone holding it down at all times. Holding the tent down requires minimal work and therefore minimal generation of heat. Isaac finally says he’s getting cold, so I switch positions with him as it gets darker hinting the sun is setting- not that we can tell, we can hardly see 50' in this storm. As I’m holding the tent over what has now become a dark void ending thousands of feet below me, I can see that the tent ledge is too small. The outside corner is hanging about a foot off the pad over nothing. Neal takes a look and then both Isaac and Neal start digging with a furor further up the slope to enlarge the pad. Once the ledge is large enough for the tent, we need to make sure the tent won’t just head down the slope after we climb into it. Neal grabs the climbing rope that I had clipped to the three pieces of installed pro and starts threading it through the corner anchors and upper tie downs. Most of this time I am still leaning on the tent to keep the wind from blowing it down the slope. Even with the hand warmers generating heat in my gloves, I have to pull my fingers back into the body of the glove and wrap them around the chemical warmers from time to time. I have used these gloves comfortably in –15F for leading ice, so I know it’s really getting colder by the minute. I also concentrate on keeping my head down to keep the wind from pushing into my hood and funneling down my coat, making me even colder. With the tent finally secured, Isaac disappears inside and starts unpacking. I move away from the side of the tent and begin handing in my gear, sleeping pad, sleeping bag, water bladder etc. At this point Neal asks for the vestibule tent pole. Huh? Uh, I put it here somewhere. Let me look. I can’t for the life of me remember where that pole went. I tell Neal I can’t find it. "Didn’t I give it to you?" he asked. I swear I didn’t lose it down the slope but I can’t find it. Neal decides he does not need it right now since the pad is too narrow at that end anyway. Neal heads into the tent and once again I am the last one left outside the tent. I move to the packs and start sorting gear. I have moved my pack into an inset corner that gets me out of the wind. My hands warm up and my feet seem ok. I check the pro we had placed and clip my backpack into one. The guys want me, and my pack, inside the tent. Instead I suggest that we clip our packs together outside the tent on the anchors. After a pause Neal starts handing out packs and I clip them to the pro with mine. Finally there is a stern command from inside the tent – “get in”, so in I go. I know it is going to be more cramped this time. No one wants to sleep inches away from a mile-high drop, so I suggest that we all rest with our backs on the wall side of the pad. I had originally envisioned us all clipped in while inside the tent, but the tent arrangement now feels secure and we decide not to deal with the hassles of trying to sleep in harnesses and clipped-in. We melt water under the jerry-rigged vestibule and listen for a break in the storm. With daylight gone and the storm still blowing, we try to sleep at an angle, heads up by the back of the ledge and feet down towards the bottom of the tent at an angle while on our sides. Neal falls asleep and I can’t be bothered with finding my “luxury items,” so I just try to ignore his light snoring. I manage to fall asleep for about an hour, if you want to call it sleep. Jammed into the end of the tent at a sideways angle, either my back or my knees are bent, meaning either my back hurts or my knees are screaming for me to straighten them out. A broken leg and two knee surgeries have long since doomed my knees to being less than happy with being bent for long periods of time. So I keep moving around, switching positions, sometimes just sitting up and listening to the wind to break for good. Occasionally it lets up and I think it’s over with. But it’s just the mountain’s way of tricking me. It starts up again just as strongly as before. At one point I am sitting up and Neal quickly sits up on my left. I turn my head to look at him and we are face-to-face, a mildly comedic moment. I think he asks me if he woke me up, or if something is wrong. I just reply, “Nope; I was already here.”
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